


Once

by ClueingforBEGGs



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 09:51:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClueingforBEGGs/pseuds/ClueingforBEGGs
Summary: 'I will always love you, or anyway I will always have loved you now. (And you will always be someone who was beautiful, once.)' John confesses his love for Sherlock just as he jumps off of the building, by the time Sherlock comes back he's already moved on.





	Once

**Author's Note:**

> This is a small ficlet I wrote for a writing prompt meme on Tumblr at the request of I-tried-and-I-loose.

‘I will always love you’

John swallows. His throat dry as he finally, after all those years, voices his feelings for Sherlock. His voice is quiet yet cracks as he finishes the sentence. He knows Sherlock didn’t hear him. Not only because he says it too quietly, but because he’s already flung the phone to the side and is now hurtling towards the ground at speed.

‘Sherlock!’ 

He’s running now. Not even thinking, his mind has stopped and his feet pound the pavement as he runs, runs towards Sherlock, runs across the road, runs into the path of a cyclist. Thud.

And now he’s on the ground too. He gets up in a daze and continues running.

‘Let me through, he’s my friend.’ Let me through, I love him.

He grabs Sherlock’s hand before the only person he’s ever loved is taken away from him. Lifeless.

‘Or anyways, I will always have loved you now’

John’s standing alone. In a graveyard. He’s read the inscription on the headstone in front of him multiple times, yet he still reads it again. ‘Sherlock Holmes’.

Unchanging. Because he’s gone. He’s dead. And John’s talking to a gravestone. 

There’s no one else there, so John starts talking louder. Talking to Sherlock. Talking to no-one. Talking to a dead person

‘Did you hear that? I said I will always have loved you. And if you hadn’t jumped, you would have heard me say I will always love you. But you did, Sherlock! You jumped! You killed yourself! And for what, Sherlock! What good came of it?’

He doesn’t notice the man behind the tree who looks very, very similar to Sherlock. But the man, who was, in fact, Sherlock, did. And he heard him.

Too late. 

‘And you will always be someone who was beautiful…’

Two years later and John has moved on. He’s met a woman, grown a moustache, and now he’s just told his landlady, his old landlady, that is, that he wants to marry her. Mrs Hudson was surprised and commented on how he’s changed, but now he’s in a restaurant. He’s moved on. He still loves Sherlock, but he knows that he’s not coming back. Ever.

Sherlock Holmes was the perfect person for him, but Mary Morstan might just be the second best person.

Six months earlier he would have been glad to see Sherlock, wearing a fake moustache and speaking in a fake Italian accent, but now? It’s too late.

He knows he would have taken the opportunity, jumped at it even.

‘…Once’


End file.
